Judging by the mail we’ve been receiving, WorldNetDaily has struck a very raw nerve with its recent reporting on the debate over evolution vs. creation.

But before we read the mail, let’s start with the bottom line.

Evolution is about whether the universe, including the earth and all the life that inhabits it, was created by God or whether creation created itself with the passage of time.

Often, the battle between creationists and evolutionists descends into knocking over each side’s straw men: Creationists debunk the more patently absurd views of Darwin, even though most of today’s evolutionists no longer hold to many of Darwin’s premises. And evolutionists assume all of their critics believe the universe was created in six days – that’s six 24-hour periods – and often pigeonhole them as mindless redneck religionists with minimal IQ and education.

Reality check: There are vast numbers of Ph.D. scientists in America today who don’t believe in the theory – sorry, Carl Sagan, it’s a theory – of evolution. Not only do they not buy the original Darwinian view – which, in light of today’s scientific knowledge, was impossibly na?ve – but they also don’t buy today’s more, well, evolved version of evolution.

Thus, even though our magazine’s July issue says nary a word about creation having taken place in six days, or the earth being only 6,000 years old – beliefs held by many creationists – but rather reports on the well-documented and profound evidentiary and logical problems with evolution, we have been inundated with insulting mail.

“I thought WND was a news site, not The Evangelical Church of Anti-science,” taunted one e-mailer.

“Get off the ‘creation theory’ crap, it is insulting to anyones [sic] intelligence,” noted another.

A graduate biologist e-mailed: “The silly and childish attempts to discredit scientific evidence is disgusting. Believe if you must that we are all descendants of only two full representatives of modern man, but for the sake of common decency don’t insult the intelligence of those of us who know full well that this is absolutely impossible. … Much of formal Religion is essentially self destructive in that stands are taken on unproven matters that tend to maintain ignorance.”

Providentially, as I sat here writing these words, two more inspired letters arrived in my in-box. Here are highlights of both:

“Really, you have to be kidding. You have blown any credibility you had by running such nonsense as a lead story. No one with an IQ of 50 can possibly believe in the ‘creation’ fairy tale. I am a conservative politically, but you are going to lose a huge part of your viewers if you run such religious-based nonsense. It is really quite an insult to even read such garbage; you must think your average reader is a complete idiot. Stick with the facts! Evolution is a fact!”

And this:

“Once you have a deity poking his finger in, there is NO logical place to stop. If you think there is, then where is it? At the end of that path, you will have done away with free will and human responsibility.”

So, let’s summarize what we have learned up to this point.

Even mention that the history of evolution is rife with fraud, that there remain to this day impossibly illogical premises, that there are a multitude of scientists that do not accept evolution as fact and that, in fact, an increasing number of books are being published by scientists questioning the theory – and you are caricatured as a mindless religious bigot with an IQ scarcely higher than that of … of an ape.

Sorry folks, but this reminds me of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” where only the smartest citizens in the kingdom, or so the authorities said, could actually see the king’s esoteric new clothes. Everyone else just saw a naked king – poor, uneducated rabble that they were. But they, too, pretended to see the clothes, just like the elite.

I recently listened to a broadcast debate between biochemist Michael Behe, a champion of “intelligent design,” and another scientist defending evolution. After Behe presented his compelling case relating to the irreducible complexity of living systems – that is, the impossibility of their having evolved incrementally, since all the intermediate stages prior to the finished system (say, like wings) wouldn’t function properly and therefore would work against survival through natural selection – the evolutionist scientist rebutted by saying, and this is a near-quote: “Without the education and scientific background to understand the formulas and algorithms that pertain to this subject, it is almost impossible for your listeners to understand how evolution works.”

In other words: You people without advanced degrees are too ignorant to understand how evolution works, so you shouldn’t even try, but instead just believe us Ph.D. priests, I mean, scientists, on blind faith.

I don’t know about you, but when someone tells me to abandon my common sense and innate (may I say, “God-given”?) understanding in favor of his superior but inscrutable knowledge that flies in the face of reason, I have a little problem with that.

Which brings us back to the main point:

The driving force behind evolution today is the same as it has always been – a way to deny the existence of God. The fact that some Christians believe that God – with whom all things are possible – could have employed evolution to unfold His creation, is beside the point. The spiritual power of evolution, the immense public seduction it has facilitated, and its primary societal role over the last century has been to remove God from the daily life and mind of mankind.

(By the way, if you call yourself a Christian and believe you evolved from a lower life form to a higher form, as evolution preaches – I mean, teaches – you are denying the very heart of your faith. Jesus Christ, whom you claim to follow, taught that man fell from a higher estate into sin, and is therefore in need of salvation. If we have evolved from a lower life form, improving constantly over the eons to our present advanced state, there is no possible need for salvation through the substitutionary death of the Son of God. There’s absolutely no wiggle-room here, friends. You’re busted.)

So if you want to believe in evolution, please be my guest. But do so with your eyes open, knowing that evolution’s most transcendent purpose is, and always has been, to enable you to walk outside and witness the majesties of nature but to no longer have to see God’s handiwork, the undeniable evidence of His love. Instead, you get to see the product of eons of “evolution” – of which man is the prideful pinnacle. And lucky day –- you’ll be happy to know that evolution also just happens to open up the door to free sexual expression, unfettered by the laws of a nameless and faceless God.

And so, in your evolutionary world, man is the creator of his own destiny. He can genetically engineer himself and his world, transplant body parts, clone animals and humans, fabricate artificial parts of all sorts, imbed subcutaneous microchips, and generally just transform his body and soul into a new creature. In him – Man – all things are made new. Man has become his own god – creating and recreating himself unto immortality.

Only in your dreams, baby.

Not too long ago, I was looking out over the Pacific, drinking in the vast expanse of the ocean, the pounding surf, the seagulls, the salt air – ultimate serenity and ultimate power all in one timeless moment. And I asked myself – just as an intellectual question, mind you – if there was some way that I could experience all of this without believing in God. Or, as our e-mailer said, without “a deity poking his finger in.”

So I tried to conceptualize the existence of what I was beholding, yet without a creator. What I got was such a headache, a momentary taste of another dimension – an empty, prideful dimension of hell-on-earth, masquerading as enlightenment and freedom.

This is truly a war of the worlds. The extreme anxiety I felt momentarily as I tasted the “other dimension” that animates those who reject the very idea of God – let me tell you something – they feel even worse when they chance to experience a fleeting moment of realization that God exists, and that they are accountable ultimately to Him.

That’s why there’s such emotion on this “scientific” subject. It’s all about freedom from accountability to God, it’s about free will, it’s about free sex, it’s about pride, it’s about being your own god.

Finally, let me say this to those out there who still believe in God – I’m assuming there are still a few of you:

When you walk outside and look at that beautiful oak tree, and your heart tells you a great intelligence designed that tree, believe it. Don’t be intimidated by the intellectually prideful, atheistic priestcraft into believing the impossible, illogical and blasphemous.

Believe it even if you’re the only bright kid in the emperor’s kingdom. Even if everyone else claims to see those fantastic new clothes, and you don’t. Don’t be afraid to say, “But the emperor has no clothes.”